Welcome to the world, stand up, look around, take in the sights. First in Africa, we have the beautiful visages of millions of starving children, AIDS victims and child soldiers. Moving on to Asia, we have totalitarian rulers, sweatshops, pseudo-fascist governments and corruption, while in Europe we find the prevailing opinion that America is populated entirely by imbeciles. On our own continent we can find poor Mexican migrants, the peddling of child sex slaves and the running of drugs and arms, along with an increasingly bureaucratic government, a disappearing middle class and a loss of freedoms and independence at home. And what are you doing?

You're playing video games and buying clothes and watching America's Next Top Model and The Hills. You debate Britney's comeback and become enraptured with her ongoing divorce from "K-Fed." You study. You learn enough to pass a test, you pass it, you forget; as long as you pass the test.

I'm disgusted, Generation. Where is the outrage? Where is the passion which compelled the world during Vietnam? Where is the sacrifice put forth by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.? Where is our Bob Dylan, where are our Beatles and why will our Che Guevara not rise?

There is an apathy which flows through this generation like an insidious disease. When controversial issues are raised in discussion, they are quickly quelled so that we might be content and happy people. Dissent, the truest form of freedom, is mocked and hated because it is feared, now more than ever. What are you afraid of, Generation? I think the realization that you can fail frightens you. I believe it is your insurmountable addiction to happiness, to feeling good, which leads you to these cocoons of apathy: when the pot is unstirred and the status quo maintained, then you can be happy.

Well what is it, anyway? What is this happiness? It is nothing more than complacency: When all is given to you, you take all. When all is not given to you, you complain languidly until it is or shrug and think yourselves martyrs for doing without. Get over yourselves, Generation. Wake up and realize this, if nothing else: the world soon will be nothing but what you make it. As it is, you would have the world be your kennel; you are dogs and expect to be fed. Shake off the collars and learn to free yourselves.